I agree a palm heel is as effective as a punch. and looks better to on lookers. also a plam strike is less likely to cause external bleeding which is a plus when it comes to civil and criminal liability. [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

Palm strike is good after you have somebody mounted on the ground. If their head is pinned against the ground(preferrably because your knee is on either their neck or jaw), it is good to strike the face and/or skull. I personally think it is easier to break more concrete with a palm strike than a fist. And that is precisely what that break is practicing. If you can do between 5 - 10 of the patio bricks you should be able to do serious damage to a skull. If you punch someone with their head pinned against the ground you will probably do more damage to your hand than to their head. It will take years of extensive makiwara training to not break your hand if you punch them with full force in this way.

I like the Palm stike as it is good for close fighting.I also teach women students this technique as i believe it avoids damaging your wrist like an incorrect punch can.Many beginners especially women do not punch correctly and this strike is effective and reduces the possibility of wrist damage.

But talking about punching being painful, tell me this, if your TRULY furious (if you get mad sometimes) do you even think about the pain? Because when i'm TRULY TRULY mad I don't feel ANYTHING of pain at all, just a soft feeling bouncing against my hand when it comes into contact with something.

NORMAL wise (your not pissed) ok, then I have to agree.

I like palm heel because I can hit Very VERY fast (rapid fire like) and then it can be good to not hurt yourself TOO much when punching the enemy :P then well, you can basically do any combo from floor-sweep elbow to knee-(jump)-hit to w/e (i'm dutch though so I barely know any of them names for certain moves)

whether you believe it or not, i just have 1 more ( off-topic a bit) question:

noone ever really told me but like you can punch in many many ways.

But WHAT kind of punch is it when you punch forward, but it feels like your blood and bones move afterwards by some invisible impact, then when I aim to punch right (left arm punches, then the lower part bends and your fist goes from straight to right) it feels as if my bones get dragged along by the force behind the punch.

It feels really weird and it's kinda strange to see your arm from going straight, to slamming to your right in an instant (you don't see your arm bending, it just does it in an instant, as if it warped O.o)

I firmly believe that every punch has its purpose, in combat I have found the a palm heel punch to be for the most effective only in self-defense, where as a punch that is made to dig into an enemy’s flesh is much more efficient in all other areas.

Extremly effective strike, personnally I eliminated all punching methods from mine and put in palmheels and shutos(knife hand). Based on ww combatives its the shuto to the bridge of the nose that kills. Another very effective method.....knee to the groin followed by a chin jab and sweep...........game over in otherwords. Because of the reaction to the groin shot the chin jabs power is tripled.

i'm 15, and i've been fighting since i was 8. my father showed me teh palm heel as my first lesson. true if applied directly to the and go in an upward position with it. it is infact very leathal, killing some one instantly, another one i learnt was take teh palm, and slam it down on the nose. this brakes the nose, but is not leathal. the bleeding nose makes your enemy's eyes water giving you an advantage. i'd suggest not trying this cause if you mess up, your can put who ever your tryign it on in grave danger.

There's a big difference in someone showing you a "move" and being able to apply it to a real situation. The only way you'll be able to do that is proper instruction and practice,practice,and practice. I hear people all the time saying,"I'll just do this or that",but in reality when it comes down to it they panic and flail because they never practiced or had instruction.